Redemption Falls

by Joseph O'Connor

  Nor was that the last time the boy played a man’s part. But more of it, I cannot bear to set down. I have known brave men. I have wished to be one of them. But conscience makes a coward of us all.

  No matter the fetid heat, the roaring sordor of battle, the filth of smoke or the stench of death, he never once asked for a furlough home, nor even permission to mail. It took some of the greenhorns a while to discern that truly he had no home. They did not know what might be done with him. To keep him among us seemed cruel; to send him away crueler. And nobody had a mind to worsen his lot. He stayed with the bones of the camp through the winters, or wandered God knows where in the boondocks.

  He and I were among a party of about thirty-five taken prisoner in a skirmish after the Wilderness. We received fair dealings by the Union sentries, many of whom themselves were Irishmen. Indeed, there was the curiosity as nightfall approached, in the roseate shadows of fading light, of captives and jailers moseying the field arm in arm, cutting shines with the farmgirls, smoking and conversing, taking potshots at jack-rabbits, even singing Irish national songs, when shortly beforehand they would have murdered one another as efficiently as Cornwallis beheading the Croppies. Enemies of the morningtide, now drunk as Cooter Brown, and the firmest old boonfellows ever witnessed.

  One morning, Captain Daniel Costigan rode up to our compound with his staff, on a proud cobalt stallion, magnificently accoutered. He was a sculpturally handsome man, cut-featured as an Iroquois. His soldiers called him ‘The Sea-Eagle’. One could not have imagined that he would be tenanting his grave within the month, nor that his death would be so terrible.

  His horse stood fully seventeen hands. I believe it was the finest mount I saw throughout all the War. Three princes of France were among his retinue, bewigged and primped, with painted moles on their chins – many things about this War were contradictory – and it seemed he had absorbed their royalness by some kind of alchemy, or, perhaps, that they had absorbed his. He had that particular poise, that fluidity of comportment, of those long accustomed to being looked at.

  His approach caused a considerable animation in the stockade, for many of our men could not help but hold him in high esteem, his siding with the northern invader notwithstanding. They knew of all he had suffered for old Ireland’s cause and of his friendship with the hero, Brigadier-General James O’Keeffe, whose escape from Tasmania he had assisted many years previously by burning the courthouse at Hobart. Of all the Blade’s captains he wasprimus inter pares. He was said to have been scourged to the bone.

  The Captain saluted me civilly, said the General would have come himself to pay his respects but was summoned away urgently to Washington. He asked if I would be prepared to assist his medicals, for seventy-one amputations required to be performed that morning and his surgeon was exhausted and aidless. I agreed to do what I could and I suppose by way of making a gesture – or being seen to make one, which is not the same thing – Costigan ordered a half-ration of whiskey for all prisoners ‘by the wishes of General O’Keeffe’. At this, there was applause from many of my fellows, though I myself did not applaud. A man that has stood on the gallows, only to tell of his luck, is regarded by other men, foolishly, as godlike.

  ‘You there: Irish. What do they call you?’ Costigan barked.

  The boy made no reply but glared up at his inquisitor.

  ‘You do not hoorah the health of General O’Keeffe, I see. We are all of us here brave Irishmen, no matter what else. Let us try to remember old courtesy.’

  The child gave a shrug and sank his hands in his pockets. He toed a pebble from its socket in the earth.

  ‘Are you bold or a skedaddler, you little rebel blackguard?’

  No answer came back from the ragamuffin drummer.

  ‘Faith, now,’ proceeded Costigan, perhaps discomfited by the boy’s composure. ‘You remind me of a Sioux I gave a hiding to once. He was called Little Horse. Shall I give you his name?’ The officers emitted snuffles of dutiful amusement, and presently the French princes did the same, only louder. Perhaps the witticism gained something in translation.

  The boy looked up at Costigan and coolly retorted: ‘Suck my –––––– and your mother’s.’ A long moment passed, colored with incredulous chokes and epithets. The powdered French princes made Os of their lips. He was pelted with scoldings, not originating from his foes, but from those in the bull-pen around him. Then Costigan laughed forcedly as he regarded his abuser – the laugh a man gives when he knows he is defeated; a sound that makes the gullet stiffen when it dies in the epiglottis – and gave the solemnest salute I ever saw, and steeded haughtily away, with no further observation, only slightly diminished by this faceful of southern grit.

  The boy and I escaped the following morning. Shortly afterward he vanished from our ranks.

  And it was later said by some, though I do not know if it is true, that O’Moody was not his name, that what little he had told us was false, that even his sex was a matter of fiction. That the plucky little drummer-boy, so frail of expression, had all the time been a girl in disguise. It may even be true, for he was beautiful, that boy. He was beautiful and young, and we failed him.

  CHAPTER 20

  YOU’RE WELCOME HERE, KIND STRANGER

  We return to Redemption Falls – A cold reception in the prints

  A STINK IN THE TOWN!

  We were aware that a FORTUNE-HUNTER may fall on hard days, when the seam he had schemed on mining proves BARREN entirely. We did not know, by gorrah, how bad de toimes could get! O’Napoleon de Great is compelled to take lodgers at his swinery! A STENCH has been noted up that end of town, yet queerer than the usual cesspit effluvium of drunken Hibernian disappointment. It is the stink of Yankee hypocrisy fermenting in its guilts. Orphans, urchins, brats, rascals, rogues, waifs, foundlings & assorted bastards: present yourselves, all, at the G——’s wigwam. The thug that murdered your fathers awaits you with open trotters. Piglets especially welcomed by the Runt-in-Chief of the potbellies. The opinion of Madame Meal-ticket we may only surmise. But we note that a sow, when FRUSTRATED or inflamed, will devour her own farrow for breakfast.

  Redemption & Edwardstown Epitaph, March 1st, 1866

  CHAPTER 21

  ROCK OF AGES, CLEFT FOR ME LET ME HIDE MYSELF IN THEE

  The drummer-boy in the kitchen – The consolations of song

  A walk through the byways of his mind

  There is a place to which he goes when the dread bubbles up. A Republic that exists in the air. A realm of queenly women encountered by lakes. Drovers and cowboys. Redcoats and pikesmen. King John the Conqueror and the Old Woman of Ireland. The Jesus of the hymns, and shipwrecked sailors, and the wild colonial boys. And he wanders this country of inherited song, lifting its rocks of rhyme. Here is the Holy Virgin, sweet Star of the Sea, spinning gold with Black-Eyed Susan. Cotton-Eye Joe strumming a lute for the Trickster, their faces grave as gravestones. John the Baptist in the Jordan, singing ‘Revenge for Skibbereen’ – and he ast his gal for water, but she gev him kerosene.

  A borderless latitude, this dustbowl of songscraps, where prophets holler Job to the locusts. Its soldiers are trumpeters. Its constitution a broadsheet. Its war-cry isRosin the Bow! And its flag is Joseph’s Coat. And its language is the pulse. O, the slaves clap hard, and the spalpeens blow their harps, and the ramblin boys of pleasure and the ladies of easy leisure are dancing the do-si-do. Bold Robert Emmet, the sweetheart of Erin, waves regally down from the House of Blue Light. Singing ‘Don’t You Longs for Freedom Time?’ with two cootchies and a banjo on his knee.

  Blackface Napoleon. St Peter on the jugs. And the Savior moan the crucifixion holler. Because none of its people are real any more – if ever they were, which the boy doesn’t know. They must once have been real to be tombed in a song? The poorman’s mausoleum. No one in this country will hurt you, or kill you, or harry you to speak when you don’t want to. They all understand you have nothing to say. You do not wish to talk, but to listen.

&
nbsp; No sister will beat you. No mother will leave you. The body does not weary. There is the hope of love. The pipes are a-callin from glen to glen. Recruiting-sergeants tricked by the ploughboys. And he sees himself in Songland, the circle around its sun. He knows its dependable geography. That mountain is a lament; that murmorous creek a lullaby. The city on that hill is Jerusalem, Mississippi, where Crowjane yodels the Twenty-Third Psalm: black angel pick the sly gittah, I’ma lief she spread her wings. In that grotto is his mother, her Connemaran come-all-ye’s. It is best not to stray toward those shadows. And there, in the deer park, near the ruins of the palace, Abe Lincoln is hanging from a sour-apple tree. In Dixie Land you med your stand. To live and die in Dixie.

  He meanders its topographies like an off-course pilgrim, knowing everything he seeks is somewhere in the scape if only he could be pointed a way. But in the meantime, he is tramping to Zion on High. Happier to be living in a ballad. In the outworld, everyone leaves in the end. But the people in the songs always stay. Long after you have gone, they will still be here. Forever, in fact. They are choiceless.

  I am in the kitchen now. Me and the dog. Warm and a rank of grits and hot grease. Honeywoman dander round like she own the whole pike. But she dont own a wart on a pig. Still got to do what they say, is all. Her hands all dusty with flour.

  She some older than Liza but younger than Mamo. Ribbon of green in her hair. Got on this dirty coat. It long like a soldiers. And these boots too big for her feet.

  Hard to understand the way she talk. Figure she dont care much for talkin. She look at me real queer. Like I wrought out of glass. Her eyes got these rivers of red.

  ‘Summon eat?’ she go. I dont say nothin.

  ‘You’ll eat when you hungry,’ she go.

  ‘You some company,’ she go. ‘You a party an a half. Got a ache in my head from the carnival in here.’

  And she stirrin a caulder on that big black stove. Like a body ever asked her for odds.

  Liza use to cook some but she waint too good. Cause she never had no patience with a fire. Honeywoman better. She breathin on the flame. She know to keep your patience with a fire, is all. It aint no secret, cookin.

  One time in the army this bummer out of Jackson, he told me this thing about girls. Fairly tumped me over. Couldn hardly give it credit. But turn out it’s a gospel, like ever thing strange. Reckon he liked embarrassin others.

  She flaunce around the kitchen like some duchess in a castle. She know where ever thing go. Them bottles. Sugarsack. Tin of black molasses. Knives in yon dresser by the shakedown. Ever thing ticker. Keep it neat as a prayerbook. Got her this one knife that shine like the sun. Could have you some fun with that knife.

  Got her fifty kind of notions up there on the dresser. Calicoes, work collars, ladles and puddin-sticks, milk pans, skimmers, dippers – a glass eye! Patent pills she got – cure anything you want, boy. Ague bitters, Shaker yarbs, rappee-snuff, wintergreen, lobely, tapes, chits, needles, oswego, smellin-bottles, corn-plaster, mustard, garden seeds, red-root, pocket-comb, tracts, playin-cards, song-books, whistle for a baby, baskets, bowls – Lucifer lights.

  Fire burn warm on the cold of my face. Look at it a long long time. Crowjane was here it sure enough be some laughs. Dependin on her humor, that is.

  Cause it waint all shit-and-no-sugar with Eliza. Just she got fit to be tied. But a woman will do that ever now and again. Woman be roped to the moon, is all. She dont mean to get wrathy, you just got to treat her nice. Got the waves of the world all runnin through her head, it aint none of her fault, just the way nature made it, an Jesus got a reason for all He fix, and He move in a mysterious way. And the honeywoman move in a mysterious way. Her wonders to perform. And if somewhere there was slavery I could sell me as a slave. But now there aint no slavery no more in the world. And that the way it is.

  my sister, she the junkyard gal,

  she mean as a hootch-house cat.

  she walk aroun louisianne, spittin like a rat.

  Real late at night when they believe I’m sleepin, I gets up, mootch around forwhile. He got him a biggo dog, like this horse of a dog. I look at that dog forwhile. In the day you be afeared take a run at that dog, for he’d scare the damn pips out of a apple. Night you could stab him in the eyes if you wants. Nothin he could do in the dark.

  she go wid jim, she go wid jack.

  go inny place he take her.

  she go wid inny snakehip man.

  she shake her moneymaker.

  In the yonder room in back he got a officers trunk. Got a mirror in the lid. See your face. But old and muddydark and scratched up all to hell. Got maps and old books. Sword from the war. Aint got no gems in the hilt no more. But you can see where it usedta got em. Holes in the silver. Some knuck must of prize em out, the lowdown no-count thief. Aint a body you can trust in all creation Eliza say. No fucky that aint your blood.

  Guess that sword in his trunk kill a whole mess of men. Been into their body like Jesus. Queer enough to think of when you hold it in your hand. That it been through some hoeboy’s ribs and all. You chargin at me, boy? Take this, you smarmin pox. Twist it in his gristles. He ribstuck.

  They gimme a pile of old coats and a bolster for to sleep on. But it hard as a jack-oak, dunno forwhy. Anyways I caint like to sleep inside. House mought fall on your head any time. Go up, it come down in the end of the hunt. Tell that someplace in the Bible.

  Always tellin you way to do when you live in a house. Stand up. Sit down. Eat your vittles with a fork. Swab your ass like a christian, you hear? We got paper here for that. Aint some cave in the mountain. Aint sometepee you trickin in now, pup. Paper, paper, paper, paper. Dont use you no leaf like a redskin savage. And dont eat you that bread. And dont drink you that water. And dont touch that picture on the wall, it aint yours. Cost a whole shute of money. Keep your hands to yourself. You find you a mess of paper, you hear, or I’ma tan you the color of a roasted goat and wear your livin back for a boot.

  Aint nobody’s Mammy. That what she said. That time I thrun my shirt on the floor that time. Honeywoman lookin strange, like she dont like me none. Get one thing about as straight as the crack in your sorry ass. I tell you to do it, you do itreal fast. I am a cook in this house. I am not your bitchin Mammy. Pick it up or I will beat you like a drum.

  Real quiet, the way she said it. Man, I fetched up that shirt. Dont you never make me tell you again, you understan? Nod your head. Nod again. Now get back to that supper. We dont have to speak of this matter again.

  Go out in the night and gets under the house. Stive up real small you fit good in there. Squidge hard enough you disappear. Like a turtle in a shell. Float all around the world like a mote in gods eye. No one ever give you no more of trouble.

  Liza said my Pa was a mexicano. Mamo never told me nothin about him. This one time I ast her she look sore as a spank. So I never did ask it again, boy. But Eliza, she knowed, cause Mamo jaw to Eliza. Eliza and Mamo was friends I guess. Cause womens always friends, least it seem so by now. Woman and a man never friends.

  Ontario, she said. Mighty cold for a mexican. Mebbe he get wed to some eskimo squaw. Livin in a igloo. Drinkin beer and hot rum. Lookin at them seals all day.

  rum rum

  sweet rum

  when I calls ya, ya bong ta come.

  Mamo tell the seals back in Ireland called silkies. Who give a squirt of piss?

  Lays under the house, you can squeeze in down there. Aint too bad. It dont matter afterwhile. No one ever find you, not under no house. I slept in a whole hell of worse.

  Listen to the nightsounds. Some shit-ass choppin wood. Curlews. Dogs. Coyote up the rocks. Biggo picture of a indian they got in back. Biggest picture ever seen in creation.

  And he such a sad look, I dont know for why. Like a feller just told him some real bad news. Like he lost him a dollar and found him a dime. Eyes all droopy and sad.

  Cause one time when I was walkin I met this comanch on the road. Gimme wedge of old cornpone and a suck of a brew. S
ay where your Momma get to? Say damned if I know, boy. She gone as the ace of spades up a sleeve. And that about as gone as she get.

  baton rou

  baton rou

  Somethin gonna happen. Wont be here when it do.

  And I see Fat Pat all alone out back. That’s a man got some trouble in mind.

  CHAPTER 22

  THEN FARE THEE WELL, MY OWN TRUE LOVE†

  Copy-letter found by the boy in the Governor’s field-trunk

  Retrieved by Elizabeth Longstreet from a nail in the outhouse.

  [Write here the date, but not the location of your camp]

  My beloved and only dearest [name of your wife]:

  I feel it proper, on this eve of engagement with the enemy, to set down my loving, my devoted thoughts. The morrow shall bring trials, this I must own. Comrades shall fall. Good friends shall not return. Whatever is to come, I wish you to know that I feel the deepest gratitude of my life this night – I speak of my thankfulness to you.

  O dearest [name]: how I wish I had you by me now. The touch of your hand, a fleeting kiss of your eyelids: for these blessings no utterance could express my gratefulness. If ever I have taken for granted your sweetness and kindness, your steadfast generosity and gentle companionship, remembrance of which has been my consolation since last we parted, thought of which, at the dawn, shall be my greatest comfort, then I ask, I humbly ask, your forgiveness.